Having been through a traumatic few days... it was a pleasant diversion to be invited to the official "ouverture" of one of our much appreciated destinations... the newly opened Café Pouchkine on the left bank.

Andrey Dallos... the founder of the world renowned... Café Pouchkine in Moscow... is already the owner of three cafés in Paris... having already opened a small patisserie | salon de thé in the Grand Magasin Printemps... which we find strikingly beautiful...

We marched today... "La Marche Républicaine"... on a day of national mourning. François Hollande... along with several heads of state including Angela Merkel of Germany... David Cameron of Great Britain... as well as other dignitaries... lead "La Marche de la Liberté"... the march of freedom...

Re today's terrorist attack in Paris at the satirical journal's Charlie Hebdo headquarters, 12 innocent people where assasinated. Stéphane Charbonnier... or "Charb", one of the journalists who was killed, once courageously remarked...

A very important article which appeared in Liberation Monde recently: "Vers une gouvernance mondiale"...

TOWARDS WORLD GOVERNANCE

Appeal by the Collegium International, Geneva, 20th January 2014

The world faces a convergence of crises of global scale without precedent: the depletion of natural resources, biodiversity loss, financial bubbles and bank failures, the dehumanisation of the economic system, social disintegration, rising inequality and social insecurity, rising intolerance, disparagement of the political elites, famines, shortages, viral pandemics…

These developments, which have taken place in the context of an uncontrollable expansion and revolution in communications technology, are largely the results of a major crisis of thought and of sense, and of the deterioration of a matrix of fundamental values.

But our free will boils down to a very simple choice: we can choose to connect to Love or not.

Love is where we came from. Love is who we are and Love in all its various forms is our destiny. Like a seed, we have full potential within us; when we plant ourselves in the soil of Love and water our dreams and life with Faith, we begin to step into and realize that potential.

And just like the seed, we express in perfect time – not all at once, but over time...

Since settling in Paris many years ago, my experiences of working in the capital have been exclusively with international companies, where the working language was English. Most recently, I joined a French, very Parisian institution.

I soon discovered that working methods, reporting lines, social interactions, attitudes towards clients can greatly differ within French companies, as compared to those of the more Anglo-Saxon corporate cultures of companies I have worked with previously in London and Paris...

I recently asked a wise, enlightened acquaintance a topical question: “How, in your opinion, is women’s role changing in the ‘5th Dimension’, from a spiritual point of view?” The answer came quickly and clearly: “Because of women’s increased empowerment, they now have a stronger platform to show that their way can work in a more beneficial way...".

Since the discussion moved on, I was left to wonder about this simple yet startling reply later, in the privacy of my thoughts. “Their way”… I presume meant women’s naturally more diplomatic, nurturing, consensus-driven method of operating, versus the more power-driven, competitive, authoritative, sometimes confrontational approach of men. Given the current unstable, chaotic, and down-right dangerous state of the world, I mused, we need every bit of help, every useful suggestion, to move us through this turbulent period in human history, and on to a more peaceful, balanced, harmonious place in our collective state of existence.

"The great sadness that enveloped the people of Boston and the participants in the Boston Marathon is the same great sadness that envelopes people everywhere in our global village. The two bombs that exploded in Boston, USA, killed three people and injured 176; the bomb that exploded on that same day in Mogadishu, Somalia, killed twenty people and injured more; and the twenty bombs that exploded on that same day across Iraq in Baghdad, Kirkuk, Tikrit, and three other cities killed 37 people and injured 140. One week earlier a bomb that exploded in rural Afghanistan killed 5 people, and on that same day an American airstrike - another bomb - killed 10 children. All of these bombings had the same cause, created the same effect, and forced the same question upon us..."

I was looking through the Women’s Forum’s “The Book” recently and a quote from one of the sessions at the 2012 Deauville “Global Meeting” conference, entitled “Can economic austerity be an opportunity for women?” caught my eye :

“In France, the dialogue between the government and the private sector is very poor. At the end of the day, it’s not surprising that the decisions taken by government are far from what the private sector expects.”

Given that this quote was uttered by Agnès Audier, Partner and Managing Director of The Boston Consulting Group, and a highly respected professional who’s previously held senior advisory positions in both the private and public sector… she must know what she’s talking about. The next headline, further down the page, made me gulp even more: “In France, 90% of women entrepreneurs do not draw a salary”.

In this weekend’s edition of the International Herald Tribune, I was drawn to read an article entitled “In Sandberg, Echoes of De Beauvoir” by Chrystia Freeland, where the author makes the correlation between some of De Beauvoir’s thoughts on women and their perception within society and Sheryl K. Sandberg’s recent book “Lean In”, which argues that some of those misperceptions of women described long ago, still hold true today. I was riveted.